Paul Heckingbottom won't know whether the Wembley win, and the hullabaloo that surrounded it, has distracted his players from their promotion challenge until tomorrow's match starts.
The Reds have attempted to mentally move on from Sunday's 3-2 Johnstone's Paint Trophy final win over Oxford United since they returned to training on Tuesday. Caretaker head coach Heckingbottom said: "We have tried to flick the switch to focus on Chesterfield. Everyone knows the cup final has gone now. I have found it very easy to move on because I am always relentless in my preparation for the next game.
"We usually analyse every match in a lot of detail but we only showed the players the highlights from the cup final. It was like a short, feel-good film. I have watched the full game back and taken some tactical things from it, which I have mentioned to a couple of players.
"We don't want the intensity to drop. We want to harness the feeling from Wembley and not be on a downer. They will have time to reflect when the season is over. We're trying to make sure the players' approach and mentality is right but, even if we say and do all the right things, we won't know whether they have moved on until the game starts."
While seventh-placed Barnsley did not play in the league this week, a win for Bradford and a draw for Millwall have doubled the gap between them and play-off places to four points. Heckingbottom said: "The teams above us are favourites. It's not do or die yet but we have to scrap for every point. You would rather have the points on the board. We need to keep taking two points a game until the end of the season.
"Hopefully we win our game in hand on Tuesday. The longer that four-point gap is there the more difficult it will be so we need to close it as quickly as we can." The Reds have lost just two of their last 20 matches in all competitions and picked up 41 of the last 51 available League One points.
